


White Butterflies

by Strange and Intoxicating -rsa- (strangeandintoxicating)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: I'm Sorry, M/M, i am so so so sorry, massive character death and broken hearts, series 7 spoilers, things do not end well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 07:03:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15813864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangeandintoxicating/pseuds/Strange%20and%20Intoxicating%20-rsa-
Summary: White butterflies. A Japanese fairytale.A reminder of futility and the fragility of life.





	White Butterflies

**Author's Note:**

> This is just gunna break people's hearts. Sorry.
> 
> I hurt me, too.

Sometimes… Sometimes people would forget that Shiro was a child once, too.  

It was easy to understand how they forgot; he was tall and strong and brave, a warrior and a champion, a pilot and a leader. He was patient and loyal and kind, but ferocious like a lion. It was easy for people to only see that part of him, the part that displayed strength instead of weakness.

Because, Shiro knew, having a heart of a child _was_ a weakness.

And Shiro was not **weak**.

But he had once been a child, once held stuffed animals between his arms as close as he could to draw comfort from its warmth. He once cried out in fear and loneliness, darkness invading his senses. There had been a time when he was afraid of the dark, too. That endless expanse of nothingness, the void.

The silence.

Even then, Shiro had childlike fantasies and whims of fancy. And, just like any other child, he had a favorite fairytale. It was the story his mother would tell him every night before he went to bed, the story she would whisper against his forehead as he drifted off and that deep, deep darkness.

It was the story of the shiro-chou, the white butterfly.

Unlike stories from the West, Japanese fairy tales were never quite the same. There was always something underneath them, a current of sadness that could never really fade from view, no matter how beautiful it may have been. Western fairytales were always filled with love and a happy ending, the Prince riding away with the Princess on the back of his horse, the “and they all lived happily ever after” tagged on the bottom in elegant script, but Shiro knew better.

White butterflies. That was the kind of world he lived in.

White butterflies.

Those were the kinds of stories that Shiro grew up listening to. An elderly man on his deathbed, the white butterfly landing on his pillow next to his head, the whisper of long ago broken memories of a lover taken far too soon. A life lived in sadness, only accentuated with bitter loneliness and white butterflies.

A reminder of futility.

They were souls, once. They were souls of lost lovers and lost futures, a constant reminder of empty spaces and broken dreams. But, in some way, it was beautiful. It was beautiful because, in the end, when the old man took his last breath, there was somebody there to usher him into the afterlife.

White butterflies.

Shiro felt his hands shake as he tore the door of the cockpit up, having to use all of his upper body strength and the power of his prosthetic arm to wiggle it free. He could feel the panic begin to rise inside of him; rather than just the shaking of his hands, he could feel it go down straight into his bones. His lips could only form one word, one prayer, one thing to keep his mind from breaking.

“Keith? Keith?”

His body was on autopilot, but his mind was racing with Keith’s name.

The force of the lion’s fall and impact scared the Garrison, and the hours of digging and digging and digging with no end in sight would have left any other man weary. But Shiro was not tired, he could not be tired.

He had to find Keith. He had to find him.

It was just the dirt billowing up from around them, the ash from the disintegrated building Keith’s lion had crash-landed into. It wasn’t butterflies. It couldn’t be butterflies, because that wasn’t a world Shiro could live in.

He couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t.

Keith couldn’t leave him, he could do it. They hadn’t had enough time, it just barely begun to live. Shiro hadn’t even been able to tell Keith that he loved him.

Keith didn’t know that he was loved. Keith couldn't leave this world without knowing that, without understanding.

It smelled like blood, tangy and sharp, and Shiro gagged when a puff of fetid air hit his face. It was hot and humid, the air leaving teardrops down the crushed side of the lion. The air system must have malfunctioned when the lion hit the stratosphere.

“Keith?”

Shiro stared down into the dark abyss, the quietness louder than screams.

Not even a whisper. Not even a whimper.

It couldn’t be— _couldn’t_ be. Because Shiro’s soul had survived inside the Black Lion for a year, and it had been Keith who had saved him. Wasn’t possible that this was just—

“Keith?” Shiro could hear his own voice breaking. It echoed through the cockpit, bouncing back to him.

No response.

It was challenging to climb in, but Shiro didn’t care about the metal biting into his arm or his back as he slid through the broken chamber. He felt something tug at his hair, and though he knew he should have cared he couldn’t find the energy in him to even try. He was sure that the warm, wet feeling dripping down his cheeks was not blood, though. Of that much he was certain.

He cried out Keith’s name again as he got closer, though Shiro knew that Keith would have responded by now if he were awake. If he were—

_Don’t think it. Don’t you **dare**._

It wasn’t until Shiro was in front of Keith that he saw the butterflies, the pale ghosting light of the Black Lion flickering across Keith’s face.

Keith looked beautiful in death.

“No. Please, _no_.”

Shiro trembled as he reached down to Keith’s face. The blood was drying and cracking, and Shiro could almost feel the fight that Keith had given before succumbing. It was written across the blood-soaked front of his uniform, the handprints on his belt, the feeble drips of blood that dotted the front of the controls and the inside of his helmet. The entire right side was crushed in, as though he were a long-forgotten toy that fate had played rough with one time too many.

How long had Keith been conscious? How long had he fought?

His skin was cold, his eyes barely open and glassy and of so very _still_. His lips were pale, all color gone.

No pulse, no life, no breath.

Shiro dropped to his knees, feeling glass dig straight through, but it wasn’t enough pain. He needed more, he needed _more_ because Keith was dead and cold and so, so _still_.

“Keith?” he whispered, hoping beyond hope that his words would bring Keith back, would breathe the life into that still, cold body.

Nothing.

Shiro knew that it was against protocol, that he was supposed to wait for his superior officer and the coroner to call the time of death, that he was supposed to wait, but he couldn’t leave Keith like that. He couldn’t just leave him still and broken and trapped. Shiro knew what it was to be trapped inside of the Black Lion.

Keith didn’t deserve that. Not for a minute more than he had to.

Shiro was careful as he removed Keith’s helmet, cradling his neck within his hand. He didn’t want to see it lull to the side, for it to be any more apparent that he was really gone.

“I’m so sorry,” Shiro whispered as he leaned in, pressing his forehead against Keith’s. When he pulled back, he could see Keith’s mouth. The blood from his nose had bloomed down the sides of his mouth like a—

A butterfly.

“I love you…”

They were magic words. They were supposed to bring the prince back from the brink of death, to save Keith from the darkness. The words of love were meant to save someone from even the worst of fates because this was supposed to be a fairytale. It was what they _deserved_.

But Shiro grew up differently. He grew up with stories of sadness, of the grief of living an entire life alone without the one he loved.

Shiro pressed a kiss to Keith’s lips—a true love’s kiss.

But Keith’s lips were dry, cold, broken.

The Black Lion shuddered, just for a moment, before going still.

And just for that moment, the glittering glass looked like white butterflies.


End file.
